Shooting at USC causes concern over safety on campus. George Zimmerman charged in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Ashley Judd strikes back at critics. Man. Woman. Friends? Plus, the latest news.
Shooting at USC: How safe is the area surrounding campus?
Two international students at the University of Southern California are dead after a late night shooting in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. Ying Wu and Ming Qu were both graduate students studying electrical engineering USC’s Viterbi School.
According to reports, the students were about a mile from campus when gunshots rang out, striking the car. Wu was shot and was found later slumped over in the car’s passenger seat. The driver, Qu, ran from the car to a nearby home to ask for help, but died from his injuries. First responders found his body on the porch of the home.
The safety of USC’s students has been of paramount importance to the school and international students make up approximately 20 percent of the population. It’s situated in an area that has historically seen high levels of crime and gang violence.
In recent years crime has dropped dramatically, possibly because of gentrification and increased policing.
“Crime is actually down in that area,” said LAPD Commander Andrew Smith, “Across the city, crime is down 77 percent since 1992, in that particular area, comparing this year to last year, violent crime is down 20 percent, and homicides, until of course, yesterday morning, were also down 20 percent.”
However, incidents like this certainly raise concerns about safety near USC. The university has a campus police force, but their jurisdiction is largely limited to the campus and the immediate area. According to KPCC crime reporter Erika Aguilar, USC has started to expand its safety ambassador program to help curb deter and prevent crime.
“The street on which the shootings occurred yesterday, a lot of the students are saying they’re just a little bit on the edge of this so-called security zone,” said Aguilar. “A lot of the neighbors there are saying the student population keeps pushing outside this security zone as students start to look more and more for some kind of housing.”
While the tragic incident involved two USC students, the area in which the crime occurred isn't under USC's jurisdiction. LAPD Commander Andrew Mullendore says that whole USC might have a “moral responsibility” to provide protection for their students off-campus, they’re limited by law.
“SC has a very limited peace officer authority so unless they have something specific in their MOU [memorandum of understanding] with LAPD, they’re basically restricted to going beyond the curb,” said Mullendore. “But liability issues, jurisdictional issues, once you leave that campus it becomes tenuous if you take some enforcement action out there.”
Weigh In
How safe is USC? What does the university do to keep its students as safe as possible? What factors contributed to this crime? How are USC’s students reacting to the shooting? And, how will this impact the numbers of international parents sending their kids the school?
GUESTS
Erika Aguilar, KPCC Crime Reporter
Commander Andrew Smith, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) He is the Commanding Officer of the Media Relations and Community Affairs Group
Phil Mullendore, Director, The Institute for Campus Safety; also Campus Police Chief at Pasadena City College for 22 years
Fight or flight: What do gun laws encourage?
National outrage over the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was answered yesterday – the special prosecutor charged shooter George Zimmerman with second-degree murder. Legal analysts say the state is facing a tough case, especially because self-defense laws there allow you to "stand your ground" or fight back if you perceive a threat.
It's not just the Sunshine State that eliminated a person's duty to retreat when under physical threat. California and dozens more have similar self-defense laws on the books. It's why New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg kicked off a national campaign to repeal gun laws that he says "justify civilian gun play."
Speaking in Washington, D.C. on behalf of several major advocacy groups, Bloomberg announced "Second Chance on Shoot First." The coalition will lobby state lawmakers across the country. Bloomberg said it will also craft model legislation.
What do you see as model legislation in the area of self-defense? Have you ever been in a "fight or flight" scenario -- with or without a gun? How did you respond? What would you do under threat on the street or in your home? And would it be legal in California? What does California's law state explicitly?
GUEST
Adam Winkler, Professor of Law at UCLA; author of “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America” (2011)
Ashley Judd's conversation about women's looks
The actress Ashley Judd set out this week to spark a conversation – and that's exactly what she did.
She authored a piece for “The Daily Beast” with an eye-catching title: "Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation over her 'Puffy' Appearance." Tens of thousands of tweets, shares and comments later, a huge conversation is being had about how the media talks about women's bodies.
It stems from a few of Judd's television appearances in March to promote a new show. Tabloid reporters were more interested in Judd's face than her show; they reported her face looked fuller then the gossip began.
Was she on drugs? Did plastic surgery go wrong? Did she need to have plastic surgery? Yes, yes, and yes, they concluded. Judd says she couldn't ignore it.
"I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle," Judd wrote.
Throughout this week, her eloquent treatise continues to resonate with women across the country, but the critics are there, too. One online commenter wrote sarcastically, "It's atrocious that such speculation should happen. After all, it's not like movie stars go around begging for everyone's attention and getting work done and going on diets they talk about endlessly and arranging for spontaneous pictures in parks with their kids."
Is that a fair criticism? What’s your reaction to “the conversation?” Did it start one in your circle? Will it make a difference?
GUESTS
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Founder & CEO, MissRepresentation.org; filmmaker, actress, speaker, and advocate. Newsom wrote, directed, and produced the 2011 Sundance documentary “Miss Representation,” which asserts that the media’s misrepresentations of women contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence.
Jose Lambiet, Veteran gossip writer and columnist; publications include the Palm Beach Post, Star Magazine, National Enquirer, New York Daily News and Radar Online
Robinne Lee, Actress, Producer, Writer; Credits include “Hitch,” "Seven Pounds,” “Hotel for Dogs;” Yale alumnae & Columbia Law
Man. Woman. Friends?
It’s only in the last several decades that friendships between men and women were even a possibility, given social norms. For instance, the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” weren’t introduced until the 1890s. After the social revolution in the 1960s which led the way for women to receive equal rights and working conditions as men, a new world existed in which men and women could no doubt become friends on a level playing field.
Nowadays, one only needs to cite empirical evidence to see instances of male and female friendships. It’s gotten so ubiquitous that the term “platonic friendship” is redundant. Whether it's through school, shared activities or work, there are tons of pairs of guy and gal friendships out there. Surely you can think of some in your own life.
So, since it’s well established that these relationships exist in the real world, why is pop culture still fixated on the issue of whether or not men and women can “get past the sex thing,” as said by the male lead of “When Harry Met Sally.” Even though it’s well documented in private life, television shows and movies are constantly placing male and female characters together to see if they can stay friends, or if they end up becoming lovers.
According to Bill Deresiewicz, who wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times about men and women being friends, scenes like the one in "When Harry Met Sally" have become cliché.
"It's something that sort of as a culture, in the way that we talk to ourselves about it, we seem to refuse to want to accept. We like to perpetuate this 'Harry Met Sally' idea because it's fun, in some level it makes sense to us, but I think it's really out-of-date," he said.
Deresiewicz said it's because as a collective society, we have difficulty imagining relationships outside of this stereotype. "We seem to have a lot of trouble imagining relationships, imagining love – to use a loaded word perhaps – that isn't based on either sex or blood. That isn't either sexual love or family love," he continued.
Deresiewicz said he's not ruling out the "Harry Met Sally" scenario, but instead asking people to pay attention to other male/female relationship possibilities that might exist.
"I'm simply saying there are a lot of other possibilities. I'm not asking anyone to believe me. I'm asking them simply to consult their own experience or their own observations about what they see around them," he said. "I don't like these blanket statements that it's not possible because the sex always gets in the way. That's what really bothers me – that there's no appreciation for the fact that there's a great variety of human experience and human possibility and human emotion."
From the phones:
Don from Culver City is single, and said he totes a prolific dating lifestyle. He says sexual attraction can ruin friendships.
"I've lost friendships because we've decided to go down that road," he said. "Sex actually winds up complicating something to the point where bonds are created that you're not ready for."
Danny in La Crescenta agreed, and said he doesn't allow the possibility of sexual attraction into his life, as he's happily married. "I have plenty of guy friends and that’s all I need. Bottom line is the temptation, and there's always going to be an attraction between men and women. Even girls, when I was younger, who I wasn't necessarily attracted to them at first, I developed a friendship with them, and after that, their beauty became more deep and I became more attracted to them."
Anu, 45, called in as she drove along the 5 Freeway. She said she's able to balance her marriage with her male friendships, adding that the male/female dynamic is valuable.
"It's highly possible to have a decent, mature, friendly relationship with people of the opposite sex. You tend to feed off of each other and there's stuff that a man can tell you that is completely different from a woman's perspective," she said.
What gives, entertainment industry? Why does such a gap exist between reality and what we see on the screen? Where do you fall on the issue: can men and women remain friends? Is sex inevitable? What examples do you have in your own life?
Guest:
Bill Deresiewicz, Writer, wrote the opinion piece in The New York Times, his book “A Jane Austen Education” is out in paperback on April 24th